Pterostylis papuana is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to New Guinea and the Maluku and Solomon Islands. It typically grows to a height of about, the leaves at the base oblong to egg-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long. Each plant has a single pale green and white flower tinged with reddish-brown, the dorsal sepal oblong and about long, the lateral sepals and petals long. The labellum is narrowly lance-shaped and long.[1]
This orchid was first formally described in 1899 by Robert Allen Rolfe in the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information from specimens collected on Mount Scratchley at an altitude of .[2]